A Foreign Service Spouse Photoblog

more antiquities: the sanctuary and death oracle of poseidon tainarios

as we continued our journey through the peloponnese, we came to cape tainarios …

… and, at its tip, the sanctuary and death oracle of poseidon tainarios. “death oracle of poseidon tainarios” sounds like the name of a swedish heavy metal band from the 90s, but it’s an actual archaeological site, albeit one that is fairly unassuming. apart from a pointing to the ruins, there is no information about how old the site is or how it was used, and the oracle site itself had a metal cover on it; an archaeologist we later met suggested that there may have been a water spout from an underwater cave at the oracle site. other than that, i have not found any information about this site on the web, just hundreds of photos, to which i’m adding my own. quite the mystery.

this was the easy part of the path.

from there, we set out for the modern-day lighthouse, 2 kilometers away. the weather was already pretty bad, however, and the rain and the wind only picked up tremendously, with gusts of (i’m guessing here) 20-30 mph. we made it three-quarters of the way before the winds and the treacherous path made it too difficult to continue. perhaps our dog’s trespassing on the site angered the god.